Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

The utterly hopeless and disastrous situation in which many working people find themselves when it comes to trying to do the basic thing of putting a roof over their heads was summed up this week for me by a young man who came into my clinic. He works in retail and he is a low-paid worker. He works in retail and he worked all during the pandemic. His partner is also in low-pay, part-time employment. Both of them are working. They are both trying to get on in life. They came into my clinic to tell me that both of them were being removed from the housing list, because they have gone over the income threshold. Their combined income now goes very slightly over €35,000 net. They are now off the housing list, having been waiting on it for 11 years.

I want the Minister for Finance to think about this. First, had the State discharged its obligation to them, as well as to the 5,000 other families in our area and we can also mention the approximately 100,000 across the country, they would now be in a council house. Regardless of what happened to their income, their rent would increase related to their income. They would not be thrown out of the council house because their income increased. Ironically, however, because they do not have a home, and because the State failed in its duty for 11 years to provide them with the home to which they were entitled, now that their income has risen, they have been flung off the list. Does the Minister get the injustice of that? In addition, I received another text this week about a case that I have raised three times in this House, of a young woman who has also been thrown off the list. She is working for CPL and is placed in the Government agency Tusla, where she works very vulnerable children. She worked all the way during the pandemic. She is in homeless accommodation with her daughter but has been thrown off the housing list.

By the way, when one is thrown off the housing list, one does not get the housing assistance payment, HAP, any more. In my area, when that happens, one is told to go out and find private rented accommodation. The average rents that are being charged in my area are now €2,200. The Minister can go on daft.ie and look for an apartment in my area. It will be €2,200. Even if they were entitled to HAP, which now they are not, the maximum HAP rate is €1,950, if one is homeless. However, they do not even get that now because their income, apparently, is too high. That is the cost at which the Minister’s friends, the build-to-rent property investors, are delivering housing in my area. By the way, there is a lot of building going on in Dún Laoghaire at the moment. Are the prices going down? No, they are going up.

The entire response of the Minister is based on a fantasy. I remember Michael Noonan always used to accuse us on the left of fantasy economics. Yet, who is peddling the fantasy? Seriously? When the private sector was delivering 70,000 to 90,000 houses a year in this country, treble the figure of what it is delivering now, did rents go down? No, they went up. Did property prices go down? No, they went up. These strategic housing developments, SHDs, are unfolding all over the city. They built for profit, not built for need. They are not built for that couple who came into my clinic. They are built to make money for property investors who are charging €2,200 per month. Alternatively, if one wanted to purchase a house in my area, which is obviously a hopeless aspiration for a couple earning just over €35,000, the average house prices being delivered by the Minister’s friends in the private sector is €560,000.

Maybe the Government's affordable housing scheme could help them, but it is capped at €450,000. When that was initially brought in, I thought it was a joke that €450,000 was considered an affordable home. A loan for 80% of that, which is what the shared equity scheme involves, would be €360,000. To get a loan from a bank for that amount, people would need to be earning between €100,000 and €120,000. Clearly, the couple who came into my home, or the vast majority of ordinary workers, would not have a chance. Now, however, it has gotten even worse because there are no houses for €450,000, which was already unaffordable. Killian Woods and the Business Postdid a report on how this scheme might apply in Dublin. Of the 50 developments they surveyed, only four had any homes that were on sale at below €450,000. In my area, there were zero. What is the Government going to do about that fact? These people are building for profit.

I missed the debate on "Claire Byrne Live" last night but I am glad we are finally debating socialism, even if it involves a load of people attacking socialists. At least we are debating it. Does the Minister of State know what socialism means? Socialism means housing for need. Capitalism means housing for greed. Housing for greed delivers rents of €2,000 or €2,200 and affordable property prices of €450,000 but in actuality, properties of €560,000. That is what housing for greed does. That is what capitalism does. Yet, the Government peddles the fantasy that eventually the rents and prices are going to fall. They are not going to fall. That is a total fantasy. What do we need to do? The Government says we could not possibly do anything without these investment funds. I am scratching my head thinking about this because we managed to build houses in the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s and 1960s without investment funds, cuckoo funds and vulture funds. How did we manage it then? We did it, but the Government is telling us we cannot possibly do it now without those funds, and that we cannot introduce rent controls because to do so would terrify them. They will all run away if we introduce real rent controls to make rent affordable. Strangely enough, that has just been done in France. A transition year student who was doing her placement in my office this week found that out for me. Maybe the Government should look into that. They have introduced rent controls and set maximum levels on a district-by-district basis, so people can only charge a certain amount for a property of a certain size. Why can we not do that? The property investors have not all run away from France. The Government's arguments are threadbare and its policy is failing disastrously.

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